Cologne  - Cruising by the Lorelei is romantic. In Germanic folklore, a siren's singing on the rock in the Rhine River lured sailors.

But the Lorelei is old hat. River cruise passengers are also drawn nowadays to Russia, France and faraway places with views of rice paddies, not vineyards. Popular rivers include China's Yangtze, India's Ganges and the Mekong in south-east Asia.

"Adventurous 'best agers'" and river travellers "who've been to all the classic destinations and are ready to try more exotic ones" are the target groups for the Far East tours offered by Cologne-based Viking River Cruises, company spokesperson Katharina Afflerbach said.

The Yangtze, at 6,380 kilometres is the longest river in Asia, and has become an almost classic faraway destination. Viking offers three and four-day trips between Yichang and Chongqing with a tour of the Three Gorges Dam as the highlight. Travellers can also book cruises between Chongqing and Shanghai, which last seven days or nine when the direction is upstream.

US-based Victoria Cruises is the market leader in Yangtze tours. It operates seven, five-star vessels on the river and plans to add another, the Victoria Jenna, in May. With 209 cabins and a capacity of 418 passengers, the Jenna will be the largest ship on the Yangtze. There will be daily departures on the popular route through the Three Gorges region.

Nicko Tours, headquartered in Stuttgart, also operates in China. Its programme include Yangtze cruises that last, together with air travel, up to 18 days.

Phoenix Reisen, which is based in the former Germany capital of Bonn, plies the Yangtze too. Cruises on its MS Yangtze Victoria are often combined with excursions to other destinations, such as Hong Kong, the Great Wall of China and the terra-cotta army near Xian.

Transocean Tours, based in Bremen, sends its Yangtze Pearl on the trail of the medieval Venetian traveller Marco Polo.

In India, three main destinations attract fans of river cruises: the Brahmaputra, the holy Ganges and the Kerala backwaters in the south.

Michael Schulze, director of Phoenix Reisen's cruise department, said demand for the company's India cruises was "still high" despite the terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. Phoenix tours the Brahmaputra with the MS Charaidew, which has room for 24 passengers.

"We've also repeatedly considered the Ganges, but it's simply too heavily polluted," he remarked.

Cities and cultural sites beckon along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia. Tours generally lead to the temple complex Angkor Wat in Cambodia, past the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, and through the Mekong delta into Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. They also go in the opposite direction. The Munich-based Lotus Travel Service has such a tour. The ships, operated by Pandaw River Cruises, are replicas of colonial vessels.

Phoenix sails the Mekong with the MS Lan Diep, which has an unofficial rating of three and a half stars.

"Among the exotic destinations, demand for Vietnam is greatest," noted Schulze, who said the main attraction was the tropical scenery along the river.

Viking does not plan to tour the Mekong until 2011. "The river's infrastructure is still unsatisfactory," said Afflerbach, pointing to a lack of landing places and access roads.

Tour operators offer more than merely a river cruise. Some have Chinese lessons for beginners in their programme, others an introduction to the game of mah-jong or Chinese painting.

Amateur cooks on board can practise making dim sum and, after slicing the vegetables, present their significant other with a piece of carrot shaped like a rose. Who said cruises on exotic rivers were less romantic than the Lorelei? (dpa)